The Criminalization of Organic Farming and the Take over of the US Food Supply
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Last updated March 16, 2009 at 1AM Eastern to correct formatting issues, and to add a related YouTube video by Free Speech TV.
The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) sent out information about HR 875, which lists 'facts' to counter 'myths' and 'rumors' on the internet. It gives no specifics to back up its 'facts,' so the following close up view of the bill and accompanying commentary offers readers a chance to decide for themselves what is myth and what is fact.
Sue Diederich heads the Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, an organization formed to protect the rights of farmers and consumers to deal directly with each other without government interference. Neither of us are lawyers, but we both can read. We invite progressive headliners to read the bills themselves and provide their own analysis. The Left needs to understand what their conservative brothers and sisters in farming view as an alarming attempt to seize absolute control of all attempts at private (non-corporate), healthy, organic food growing and sharing. ~LCC
People seem to expect HR 875 to be titled "The Criminalization of Organic Farming and the Take over of the US Food Supply." When they don't see any words to that effect anywhere in the bill, they declare "this bill is fine" and those seeing dangers are "alarmists." Do they think the industrial side is composed of fools? These are the same people who make cheery cereals with cartoon characters on the box when, inside, high fructose corn syrup is all over the cereal which comes from Bt-corn associated with diabetes. HFCS is, too, and there is an epidemic of diabetes here even among children. They know how to package. Why do people understand that industrial food inside a box can be a problem and yet are so innocent about looking at the bills, not realizing there is packaging there, too, or how much is at stake that the public and even legislators not see since this is about taking control. The industrial side isn't stupid.
Understanding parts of the bill at times depends on smelling smoke as you read it. Here in the US, we still have only smoke ... an Ohio state ag department SWAT team raid on an organic coop, Pennsylvania ag department raids on horse and buggy Mennonites, California setting coliform levels so low fresh milk dairy farmers would need cows that produced pasteurized milk right out the udder, arrest and handcuffing of a single mother in front of her children for selling goat milk, the USDA paying its agents bonuses for foreclosing on farms, ... But in the EU where 60% of the Polish farmers are now gone because of identical bills enacted into law there, and 60 UK farmers have committed suicide, there is fire. And in Iraq, where they have been rendered helpless serfs by the theft of their country's seeds and criminalization of farmers' collection of their own seed, it is roaring. And in India where 182,000 farmers have committed suicide since the WTO and IMF got hold of agriculture and our Big Ag firms went in there, and 8 million farmers have left the land, it is out of control.
The World Trade Organization (WTO), run by the multinational meat packers and genetic engineering corporations, want HR 875, here. The bills are "harmonized" rules for globalization of food and lower food safety standards to allow for it. Those corporations are members of NIAA, a corporate consortium that brought NAIS, created by Anne Veneman, to the USDA to be made into law.
We begin with PASA offering Food & Water Watch's take on the bills to its members. PASA's assertions are in Times New Roman.
Myths and Facts H.R. 875 –The Food Safety Modernization Act
PASA members: The following information about a bill now before Congress, HR 875, was developed by our friends at Food and Water Watch, and forwarded to us by the National Sustainable Ag Coalition (NSAC), of which PASA is a member.This Myth/Fact sheet was developed to help answer some of the rumors that are fairly rampant on the Internet right now. We will keep a close eye on the situation, and share further updates from NSAC as they become available.
MYTH: H.R. 875 "makes it illegal to grow your own garden" and would result in the "criminalization of the backyard gardener."
FACT: There is no language in the bill that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens. This bill is focused on ensuring the safety of foods sold in supermarkets.
Though private residences are not specifically included, nor are they specifically excluded. While this does not immediately affect homeowners growing tomatoes in the backyard, entered testimony leaves the door open for just that in the future. Referring back to the Bio-Terrorism Act, in a discussion on this very topic and entered in the official record of debate on the interim rule, the same argument exists here and no new definitions or exclusions have been provided in HR 875 - and "reasonable" is a subjective term in theory as well as practice...
(13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT-
(A) IN GENERAL- The term 'food establishment' means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.
Now, every home in the country holds food after buying it from the grocery store. Will they be included too? Heck, no. They're going to be magnanimous and say that, while they could, they won't right now.
Response excerpted from the same Interim Rule:
"FDA has concluded that private individual residences are not ''facilities'' for purposes of the registration provision of the Bioterrorism Act. Under the Bioterrorism Act, the term ''facility'' includes ''any factory, warehouse, or establishment.''
Congress did not specify any definition for these terms. Under their common meanings, the terms can include private residences. For example, accordingtoWebster's II New Riverside University Dictionary (1994), the most relevant definition of ''establishment'' is ''a business firm, club, institution, or residence, including its possessions and employees.''
However, ''[I]n determining whether Congress has specifically addressed the question at issue, the court should not confine itself to examining a particular statutory provision in isolation.... It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme." FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 121 (2000).
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The multiple ways Monsanto is putting normal seeds out of reach
1. They've bought up the seed companies across the midwest.
2. They've written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork and testing and tracking every variety and being subject to fines, that having normal seed becomes almost impossible (an NAIS approach to wiping out normal seeds). Does your state have such a seed law? Before they existed, farmers just collected the seeds and put them in sacks in the shed and used them the next year, sharing whatever they wished with friends and neighbors, selling some if they wanted. That's been killed.
In Illinois which has such a seed law, Madigan, the Speaker of the House, his staff is Monsanto lobbyists.
3. Monsanto is pushing anti-democracy laws (Vilsack's brainchild, actually) that remove community' control over their own counties so farmers and citizens can't block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops. So if you don't want a GM-crop that grows industrial chemicals or drugs or a rice growing with human DNA in it, in your area and mixing with your crops, tough luck.
Check the map of just where the Monsanto/Vilsack laws are and see if your state is still a democracy or is Monsanto's. A farmer in Illinois told me he heard that Bush had pushed through some regulation that made this true in every state. People need to check on that.
4. For sure there are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA right now that make a farmer's seed cleaning equipment illegal (another way to leave nothing but GM-seeds) because it's now considered a "source of seed contamination." Farmer can still seed clean but the equipment now has to be certified and a farmer said it would require a million to a million and half dollar building and equipment ... for EACH line of seed. Seed storage facilities are also listed (another million?) and harvesting and transport equipment. And manure. Something that can contaminate seed. Notice that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not mentioned.
You could eat manure and be okay (a little grossed out but okay). Try that with pesticides and fertilizers. Indian farmers have. Their top choice for how to commit suicide to escape the debt they have been left in is to drink Monsanto pesticides.
5. Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners across the Midwest. In Pilot Grove, Missouri , in Indiana (Maurice Parr ), and now in southern Illinois (Steve Hixon). And they are using US marshals and state troopers and county police to show up in three cars to serve the poor farmers who had used Hixon as their seed cleaner, telling them that he or their neighbors turned them in, so across that 6 county areas, no one talking to neighbors and people are living in fear and those farming communities are falling apart from the suspicion Monsanto sowed. Hixon's office got broken into and he thinks someone put a GPS tracking device on his equipment and that's how Monsanto found between 200-400 customers in very scattered and remote areas, and threatened them all and destroyed his business within 2 days.
As Norman Braksick, the president of Asgrow Seed Co. (now owned by Monsanto) predicted in the Kansas City Star (3/7/94) seven years ago, "If you put a label on a genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."
The Seed Satyagraha is the name for the nonviolent, noncooperative movement that Dr. Shiva has organized to stand against seed monopolies. According to Dr. Shiva, the name was inspired by Gandhi’s famous walk to the Dandi Beach, where he picked up salt and said, “You can’t monopolize this which we need for life.” But it’s not just the noncooperation aspect of the movement that is influenced by Gandhi. The creative side saving seeds, trading seeds, farming without corporate dependence-–without their chemicals, without their seed.
“All this is talked about in the language that Gandhi left us as a legacy. We work with three key concepts."
"(One) Swadeshi...which means the capacity to do your own thing--produce your own food, produce your own goods...."
“(Two) Swaraj--to govern yourself. And we fight on three fronts-–water, food, and seed. JalSwaraj is water independence--water freedom and water sovereignty. Anna Swaraj is food freedom, food sovereignty. And Bija Swaraj is seed freedom and seed sovereignty. Swa means self--that which rises from the self and is very, very much a deep notion of freedom.
"I believe that these concepts, which are deep, deep, deep in Indian civilization, Gandhi resurrected them to fight for freedom. They are very important for today’s world because so far what we’ve had is centralized state rule, giving way now to centralized corporate control, and we need a third alternate. That third alternate is, in part, citizens being able to tell their state, 'This is what your function is. This is what your obligations are,' and being able to have their states act on corporations to say, 'This is something you cannot do.'"
“(Three) Satyagraha, non-cooperation, basically saying, 'We will do our thing and any law that tries to say that (our freedom) is illegal… we will have to not cooperate with it. We will defend our freedoms to have access to water, access to seed, access to food, access to medicine.'"
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MORE...
"Food safety" bills now in Congress were written by Anne Venemann, former Monsanto counsel, and by the WTO (composed of Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, the biotech companies, the big pharmaceuticals, etc.). They were introduced by Rosa DeLauro, whose husband works for Monsanto, and Food Democracy Now says that Michael Taylor, former Monsanto lawyer who approved rBGH, may get a job inside the White House running "food safety." The bills would industrialize all farms, eliminate most of our farmers (as similar legislation is doing in the EU now), and threatens biodiverstity and organic seeds - our means to avoid GMOs. The bills are immense in reach (gardens and homes are not excluded), vague in detail, draconian in penalties (applied by "the Administrator," with no judicial review.)
Let your legislators and local paper know what you think and want: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php
Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Capital switchboard toll free numbers: 800-965-4701 800-828-0498.
Speaker: nancy.pelosi@mail.house.gov, Introduced the bill: rosa.delauro@mail.house.gov,
Co-signers: jerrold.nadler@mail.house.gov, eleanor.norton@mail.house.gov, linda.sanchez@mail.house.gov, diana.degette@mail.house.gov, peter.defazio@mail.house.gov, shelley.berkley@mail.house.gov, sanford.bishop@mail.house.gov, timothy.bishop@mail.house.gov, andre.carson@mail.house.gov, eliot.engel@mail.house.gov, anna.eshoo@mail.house.gov, sam.farr@mail.house.gov, bob.filner@mail.house.gov, gabrielle.giffords@mail.house.gov, raul.grijalva@mail.house.gov, john.hall@mail.house.gov, maurice.hinchey@mail.house.gov, mazie.hirono@mail.house.gov, eddie.johnson@mail.house.gov, marcy.kaptur@mail.house.gov, barbara.lee@mail.house.gov, nita.lowey@mail.house.gov, betty.mccollum@mail.house.gov, james.mcdermott@mail.house.gov, james.mcgovern@mail.house.gov, gwen.moore@mail.house.gov, christopher.murphy@mail.house.gov, chellie.pingree@mail.house.gov, timothy.ryan@mail.house.gov, janice.schakowsky@mail.house.gov, mark.schauer@mail.house.gov, louise.slaughter@mail.house.gov, fortney.stark@mail.house.gov, betty.sutton@mail.house.gov, debbie.wasserman.schultz@mail.house.gov
MORE DETAILS...
Some cannot believe that the HR 875 in Congress for a vote will criminalize seed banking. This bill will allow for Monsanto to take control of all seeds in the US.
Here's the bill, broken down: http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-solemn-walk-through-HR-8-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090314-67.html
Another article about the ways Monsanto is putting seeds out of reach.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-multiple-ways-Monsanto-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090203-854.html
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-759
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h759/show
H.R. 759 (FDA overhaul), 111th Congress
Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009
* HR 759 overhauls the entire structure of the FDA.
* It's more likely to move through congress than HR 875.
* It contains provisions that could cause problems for small farms and food processors.
H.R. 814 ("NAIS on steroids"), 111th Congress Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009
* a mandatory animal identification system
H.R. 875 (creation of FSA), 111th Congress Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/
Food & Water Watch's Statement on H.R. 875 and other food safety bills (like H.R. 759)
The dilemma of how to regulate food safety in a way that prevents problems caused by industrialized agriculture but doesn't wipe out small diversified farms is not new and is not easily solved. And as almost constant food safety problems reveal the dirty truth about the way much of our food is produced, processed and distributed, it's a dilemma we need to have serious discussion about.
Most consumers never thought they had to worry about peanut butter and this latest food safety scandal has captured public attention for good reason - a CEO who knowingly shipped contaminated food, a plant with holes in the roof and serious pest problems, and years of state and federal regulators failing to intervene.
It's no surprise that Congress is under pressure to act and multiple food safety bills have been introduced.
Two of the bills are about traceability for food (S.425 and H.R. 814).
These present real issues for small producers who could be forced to bear the cost of expensive tracking technology and recordkeeping.
The other bills address what FDA can do to regulate food.
A lot of attention has been focused on a bill introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (H.R. 875), the Food Safety Modernization Act. And a lot of what is being said about the bill is misleading.
Here are a few things that H.R. 875 DOES do:
-It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of FDA by splitting it into 2 new agencies -one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.
-It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of inspection on the risk of the product being produced - but it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees.
-It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.
-It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.
And just as importantly, here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:
-It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb,
catfish.)
-It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.
-It does not regulate backyard gardens.
-It does not regulate seed.
-It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.
-It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food that is sold across state lines).
-It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve traceability of foods, but specifically says that recordkeeping can be done electronically or on paper.)
Several of the things not found in the DeLauro can be found in other bills - like H.R. 814, the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system, or H.R. 759, the Food And Drug Administration Globalization Act, which overhauls the entire structure of FDA. H.R. 759 is more likely to move
through Congress than H.R. 875. And H.R. 759 contains several provisions
that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:
-It extends traceability recordkeeping requirements that currently apply only to food processors to farms and restaurants - and requires that recordkeeping be done electronically.
-It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.
-It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to fund the agency's inspection efforts.
-It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish Good Agricultural Practices for produce.
There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for one size of agriculture - the largest industrialized operations.
That's why it is important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers different from agribusiness. And the work doesn't stop there - if Congress passes any of these bills, the FDA will have to develop rules and regulations to implement the law, a process that we can't afford to ignore.
But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food safety system is not an approach that works for consumers, who are faced with a food supply that is putting them at risk and regulators who lack the authority to do much about it.
LINKS TO ARTICLES (PDFs)...
Monsanto fined $1.5m for bribery
Monsanto Hijacks Safe Food Coalition
Monsanto's High Level Connections to the Bush Administration
Monsanto wins Canada seed battle
USDA Chief Tom Vilsack: Another Shill for Monsanto
Monsanto, Agent Orange and Dioxins
Monsanto: A Review of Their Criminal Acts
WANTED: Monsanto for crimes against the planet
Monsanto Whistleblower: Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease
Jeffrey Smith, NewsWithViews.com, August 28, 2006
Monsanto vs. Farmers: The Final Battle?
Barbara Peterson, Conspiracy Planet, February 2009
HR 875: Monsanto Frankenfood Conspiracy Bill
Linn Cohen Cole, Conspiracy Planet, March 12, 2009
Monsanto Bills Set to Destroy Organic Farming
Linn Cohen-Cole, Conspiracy Planet, February 17, 2009
EPA Investigations into Monsanto and Dioxin
Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News #400, July 28, 1994
Monsanto Charged with Bribing Indonesian Environment Official January 7, 2005,
ENS Newswire, January 7, 2005
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear: Domination of America’s Food Chain
Donald Barlett & James Steele, VANITY FAIR, May 2008
EPA Memorandum on Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation on Cover Up of Dioxin Contamination in Products
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
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a great website for Indian History
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